Lex is a teenage Grim Reaper with the power to Damn souls, and it’s getting out of control. She’s a fugitive, on the run from the maniacal new mayor of Croak and the townspeople who want to see her pay the price for her misdeeds. Uncle Mort rounds up the Junior Grims to flee Croak once again, but this time they’re joined by Grotton, the most powerful Grim of all time. Their new mission is clear: Fix his mistakes, or the Afterlife will cease to exist, along with all the souls in it.

The gang heads for Necropolis, the labyrinth-like capital city of the Grimsphere. There, they discover that the Grimsphere needs a reboot. To do that, the portals to the Afterlife must be destroyed…but even that may not be enough to fix the damage. Things go from bad to worse, and when at last the fate of the Afterlife and all the souls of the Damned hang in the balance, it falls to Lex and her friends to make one final, impossible choice.

First Sentence: “Grotton wondered, for a brief moment, if there were a special circle of hell reserved for someone like him, or if Dante would have to cobble together an entirely new one.”

Review:
This review will be spoiler-free for the series.

Dear blog readers, today I shall exhort you to begin reading Gina Damico’s Croak series, assuming you haven’t already. If you stop by here often, then you probably know that I’m pretty stingy with my 5 star ratings, giving them out only in cases where a book has made me an emotional mess, sucked me in so much I forget the real world, AND been, from my limited perspective, unimpeachable in quality. Most series go out with more of a whimper than a bang, but, in this case, the finale is the strongest book in the series, which is why I am going to fangirl as hard as I can, and encourage all of you with good senses of humor to read this as soon as possible.

From Croak onward, Gina Damico has excelled at humor and narrative voice. She writes a mixture of black comedy and straight up silliness that I find positively enchanting. The sort of people who enjoy television shows like Dead Like Me and Pushing Daisies simply MUST read this series. Her style has a really unique flair. She chooses really weird terms or phrasing at times, but somehow they’re completely perfect for the moment. A good example is her creativity in coming up with swear words. Ordinarily, I find invented swear words in novels irritating, rather than amusing or clever, but Damico’s are perfection and likely to enter my actual vocabulary. Here are some examples: “shitballs,” “everdeathing,” and “douchecrate.” While probably not to everyone’s tastes, if those make you giggle, it’s a sign that Damico’s writing is meant for you.

However, there’s more than just humor in this series. Though Croak is, so far as my memory can recall, largely a darkly comic fluffy book, with a bit of intensity right at the end, both Scorch and Rogue have far more serious moments. In Scorch, they weren’t quite as well balanced and that ended up being my least favorite in the series. By Rogue, Damico’s got it down, handling serious moments with proper seriousness, making me want to cry, and then lightening the mood on the next page so that I’m grinning like an idiot. It’s a bit of an emotional roller coaster, with much of the comedy being of the sort to help keep them moving in the face of overwhelming odds.

The characters all sparkle with wit, vivacity and uniqueness. I love each and every one of them, basically, though Mort is my special favorite and going on my book boyfriend list. Gina Damico writes banter between characters like no one else. All of the grim reapers in their little group make fun of one another constantly, but there is real love underneath that, so completely evident through it all. Even better, Damico doesn’t neglect the supporting cast at all. In fact, by book three, there almost isn’t a supporting cast because they’re all so important to the plot and accomplishing what must be done. There’s an ending for all of the characters you’ve come to love, whether happy or sad, and it’s not just about Lex and Driggs, who I do ship something fierce by the way.

Since I’m not going to delve into any spoilers for the series, I’ll keep this high level and relatively brief (for me anyway). The last thing I need to say is that Damico has guts. She steps outside of traditional YA lines and takes big risks. The stakes are high and she kills a lot of characters, with rather a Whedonesque flair. She gets the utmost respect from me for that. The series also abounds with twists, some of which I called and some which totally blindsided me, all combining to make a wholly engrossing and emotional reading experience.

Gina Damico’s Croak series is officially ranked among my favorite books ever, and rereads in the future will be essential. As of this writing, Damico has another book deal for a book called Hellhole about a devil, and I’m already wondering who I have to do what to in order to be able to read that ASAP. So, friends, if you have a similar taste in humor, then you want this in your life. Trust me. If you don’t trust me, why are you here?

Favorite Quote:

“‘My undercarriage is a national treasure.'”

Giveaway:
Because I love this series so damn much, I’m giving away all of the books or however many you need to complete your collection. Winner’s choice as to which books in the series you want, so that you can complete your collection or get it started!

GAH! Not reading this, but seeing your and Lily’s tweets while you were reading this one has me knowing that I need to start this series SOON! Too bad August and Sept are so ridiculous. Maybe I can find some room…

I loved the first book and I have the second which I haven’t gotten to yet. I really need to though. I am so happy to see that you loved the last book!! It makes me even more excited to read the rest of this series! Fabulous review!

Yep, I’ve noticed that you are VERY stingy with 5 star ratings. I got an ARC of the first one in the series, but never actually read it. Looks like I’m missing out. Big time. I love when authors take risks – I need to get reading!

Eeeee. I saw you and someone else, I think, tweeting yesterday about the awesomeness that is this series, and I am already feeling it from your review. 5 stars? 5 stars from you? (!!!) I am definitely not a fan of made-up swearing words, but those combinations… My favorite is douchecrate. I hope this means that the humor and the wit between the characters comes off as a product of their history, and not just because they’re witty characters, which it seems like are really prevalent in YA. But I trust you and your comparison to Pushing Daisies? That show was the best! The only thing I’d see that you’ve included that scares me a little is the killing off of characters. I love the risks, but but but what if I start to ship people and they die :O?

That someone else would be Lili! I know, right. Gah, this was perfection. Such a good series ending. The lols! The feels! Ummm, well, I think they are just sort of witty, but I’m not sure if I quite understand what you mean by that tbh. Bahaha, I love when characters die. It’s epic.

Pushing Daisies….waaahhhhh!!! Why did they take that off the air? WHY?!?! (sniff, sniff) Freaking LOVED that show. Sigh.

I have NOT YET STARTED this series, but I so want to!!! It’s quite possible that it was you who got me interested / introduced me to the series last year when book 2 came out, actually…but I still haven’t had a chance to get my hands on any of the books to get started. Based on what you’ve said about them here, I KNOW I would love these books. Thanks for the chance to win!

Thanks for the chance to read this-I read the first two books and wasn’t sure about the ending for Scorch so I haven’t continued with the series yet. Since you say it’s the best, I will definitely make it a priority to read before the end of the year.